Monday, September 6, 2010

In "The Future That Never Happened" by Ariel Levy I found it most interesting when she discussed Hugh Heffner and his views on women. He has a clear cut double standard built into his philosophy. "Socially, mentally, I enjoy being with men. When i want to speak, to think, I stay with men." Here Heffner is basically stating that women are incapable of having an intellectual conversation. While Heffner did a lot towards liberating woman sexually he has created an entire empire exploiting them. This double standard is still very prevalent in todays society. A girl and a guy could have the same amount of sexual partners and be viewed completely different by their peers. The guy would likely be deemed "the man" by his friends while the girl would be labeled a slut. Betty Friedan talks about how women were trapped in their houses, they felt like their sole purpose was to be a housewife. So on one end of the spectrum you have women that feel the need to be sexually liberated and free to do what they want with their bodies. While on the other end of the spectrum you have these women who strive to be the ideal housewife, to a certain extent society still tells us that a women's place is in the home. These are two conflicting roles and can cause confusion for women. An example of this in popular culture is Montana Fishburne, the famous actor Lawrence Fishburn's daughter has recently gotten into porn. Someone on the outside may say why is she doing this she comes from a wealthy family and probably had plenty of other career options. She was quoted in an interview saying " Its my body I can do with it what i want". This I think is the attitude of many women today.